In Friday, Oct. 10, 1913 edition of the Marietta Journal and Courier, the entire front page was an ad from the T.L. Wallace Clothing Company of Marietta advertising a $12,000 shoe stock – the largest stock in North Georgia.

Also in that edition, there was a story about how the gin house of the Shaw Brothers in Sandy Springs burned to the ground with 22 bales of cotton. There was no insurance carried on the gin, gin house or the cotton, which was valued at a $4,000 loss. All but two bales of the cotton were the property of customers of the gin.

Another story in that edition reported that the first Tuesday of the month always brought horse traders to Marietta. On the previous Tuesday, a black man named, Sam Speedy, rode in from Atlanta with a group of horse traders and rode around the Marietta Square doing a wild cowboy stunt that “would make Jack Richardson, of American film fame, look cheap.” Repeatedly cracking his long whip and frightening folks, Speedy was caught by Chief Goodsen – who according to the report grabbed the horse’s bridle in one hand and Speedy by the belt in the other before taking him to jail.

50 years ago …

In the Friday, Oct. 4, 1963 Marietta Daily Journal, it was reported that the ground-breaking for the multi-million dollar Lockheed Georgia Research Center near Smyrna began when Lockheed Corporate Board Chairman Courtlandt Gross turned a switch that set off an explosive charge. A space age generator, normally fueled by radioisotopes, supplied the power for the ground-breaking. The thermoelectric generator was mounted on a three-foot high pole some 200 yards from the buried charge.

Lockheed-Georgia’s new C-141 StarLifter was reported in the Sunday, Oct. 6, 1963 paper as being scheduled to make its first test flight in December 1963.

Ward 7 City Council candidate T.G. McBee indicated in the Monday, Oct. 7, 1963 paper that he would work for establishing a city bus system if elected. McBee was seeking to unseat incumbent Councilman Tom Holland in the general election.

In the Wednesday, Oct. 9, 1963 paper, it was reported that the State Board of Regents approved the establishment of a junior college in Cobb County. The college, which had to be financed by local bonds, was to be built on a site chosen by the Regents later. Cobb’s selection came during a Regents meeting in Carrollton. Both Cobb and Bartow counties had been actively seeking the facility.

Marietta Mayor-Elect Howard Atherton Jr. was reported in the Thursday, Oct. 10, 1963 paper as defeating Temperance Leader Barney Nunn by a vote of 4,001 to 1,022 in the city’s general election. The Marietta City Council also had six new faces as voters streamed to the polls in unexpected heavy numbers and turned out two of three incumbents. Ward 7 Councilman Tom Holland was the only surviving incumbent as Ward 2 Councilman Charlie Mayes and Ward 3 Councilman Bill Lee were defeated.

20 years ago …

An Atlanta developer who wanted to turn the historic, but run-down former Brumby Chair Co. facilities into an $11 million office park was reported in the Tuesday, Oct. 5, 1993 MDJ as delaying his plans for the second month in a row. Thomas P. Lennon, president of Atlanta-based The Lennon Companies, said he would ask the Marietta Planning Commission to table his request to rezone 7½-acres off Kennesaw Avenue and North Marietta Parkway. Lennon said he needed time to find solutions to potential traffic problems. His three-phase development proposal focused on renovating and reusing the existing five buildings on the property for a 126,250-square foot office park, with the added possibility of specialty shops and a restaurant.

A 14-year-old Acworth boy attacked by a rabid raccoon was reported in the Wednesday, Oct. 6, 1993 paper as the 19th victim in a rash of rabid animal cases in Cobb County for 1993.

In the Friday, Oct. 8, 1993 paper, it was reported that six boys, one only nine years old, who had been trashing a mobile home sales lot in the Cherokee County section of Acworth turned violent when confronted by a sales manager. The nine-year-old swung a metal pole that he was using to destroy the inside of a trailer and struck the manager in the head as the others watched. The manager stated that one of the boys then said they should kill him and the group appeared not to be scared of anything. The confrontation ended when another sales manager arrived and the youths scattered. The manager held onto his attacker and that gave Cherokee County deputies the break they needed in solving a four-day, $25,000 vandalism spree at the business. The boys, who were all arrested at a nearby mobile home park, each faced up to 15 felony counts of criminal damage to property.

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